Washington Has Been Predicting a Russian Invasion of Ukraine for Eight Years. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
World hegemony is not a right America has earned
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This incisve article by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was first published by From the Trends Journal 8 years ago (Spring 2014)
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When the Soviet Union collapsed, it cleared the way for the rise of the neoconservatives and their ideology of U.S. world hegemony. The neoconservatives concluded that the Soviet collapse brought the end of history, by which they meant that history had chosen “American democratic capitalism,” which is neither democratic nor capitalist, as history’s final statement. History’s choice gives the government of the “exceptional, indispensable” American people the right to world hegemony. The problem for the neoconservatives is that not all of the world agrees with “history’s choice.” Independent states, such as Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Iran, China, and Russia did not see themselves as provinces in Washington’s empire. Neither do India, Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.
The neoconservatives made a concerted and successful effort to take control of U.S. foreign policy and military doctrine. With the Clinton regime’s attack on Serbia, Washington began eliminating governments that are obstacles to its hegemony.
The U.S. government has overthrown the Iraqi and Libyan governments with military force, instigated a military attack by outside Islamist forces on the Syrian government, demonized Iran as a precursor to military attack, captured the former Russian province of Georgia in a U.S.-financed “color revolution,” overthrown the elected Honduran government, unleashed orchestrated protests against the government of Venezuela, threatened Bolivia and Ecuador, routinely attacks with drones and missiles populations in Pakistan and Yemen, and has been at war against the Taliban in Afghanistan for 13 years.
Iran, Russia, and China are being surrounded with U.S. military bases, and now the neoconservatives in Washington have captured Ukraine with a Washington-sponsored coup against a democratically elected government. Washington claims that the Ukraine government was corrupt. Corrupt like who — Washington and the EU?
Washington Confronts Russia with a Strategic Threat
Washington’s coup in Ukraine brought not only a threat to the Russian population in Ukraine but also a direct strategic threat to Russia itself. The Russian government got in the way of Washington’s march to hegemony by, together with the UK parliament, blocking Obama’s military invasion of Syria and by producing a diplomatic solution to Iranian enrichment of uranium for nuclear energy. Washington was much annoyed as Washington had invested much time and money in setting up Syria and Iran for military attack.
Washington concluded that Russia needed to be confronted with, or distracted by, problems that would leave the Russian government less confident or able to counter Washington’s aggression elsewhere.
Ukraine presented the perfect opportunity for Washington to advance its hegemonic agenda. Ina speech at the National Press Club last December, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland boasted that Washington had invested $5 billion in non- governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ukraine. Allegedly, the purpose of NGOs is to “teach democracy.” However, Ukraine already had a democracy. In reality the NGO organizations are U.S. fifth columns that can be used to organize protests and to provide support for Washington’s candidates for the Ukraine government.
Western pressure was applied to the democratically elected government of President Victor Yanukovich to join the EU. The Ukrainian government considered the proposal and decided rationally that the Ukraine economy was integrated with the Russian economy and that the trade, subsidy, and loan advantages of its association with Russia were worth more than EU membership, which would likely bring an IMF adjustment program that would result in the looting of the Ukraine economy. When Ukraine declined EU membership, Washington set in motion its NGO fifth columns. Protests began in Kiev demanding that the elected government change its mind and join the EU.
The protests were nonviolent until well-organized ultra-nationalist organizations, such as the Right Sector introduced violence and took over the protests, changing the demands from joining the EU to overthrowing the democratic government. President Yanukovich had reached an agreement with EU representatives to implement constitutional changes that could result in Ukraine being voted into the EU, but this agreement fell by the wayside with the rise of the Right Sector’s takeover of the protests.
It is unclear whether Washington worked with the Right Sector or overlooked it. The ultra nationalists and Washington’s stooges are at odds. It is unclear how the differences will be resolved.
Washington did overlook important facts about modern day Ukraine. For about 300 years Ukraine was part of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. The Russian Black Sea naval base is located in Crimea. Crimea, a Russian province for most of the period since the time of Catherine the Great, was added to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine in 1954 by Khrushchev at a time when Russia and Ukraine were parts of the same country. The Crimean population is mainly Russian. Other parts of present day southern and eastern Ukraine are Russian territories included in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine by Lenin. When the Soviet Union dissolved and Russia allowed Ukraine to become independent, these Russian territories remained part of Ukraine. Consequently, Ukraine is an untenable combination of Russian people and Russophobic Ukrainians in the western part of present day Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government confronted the orchestrated protests with unarmed police and followed up this mistake with another — the police were disbanded. Lacking protection, Yanukovich and his party fled or went into hiding. A Washington stooge, Yatseniuk, was appointed, not elected, prime minister. Yatseniuk is the person selected by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the U.S. Ambassador in Ukraine in their telephone conversation in which they choose the members of the stooge government. Transcripts and recordings of the leaked conversation are abundant. See, for example, here and here.
Washington’s stooge government, once installed, either lacked all judgment or went straight to work setting up confrontations with the Russian provinces in Ukraine. The stooge government passed a law outlawing the official use of the Russian language. Proposals were introduced to arrest residents who retained dual Russian/Ukrainian citizenship. Many Russophobic statements were issued. For example, former prime minister Tymoshenko, released by the coup from prison where she was serving time for corruption, declared in an intercepted telephone conversation that “it’s about time we grab our guns and go kill those damn Russians together with their leader.” See this.
The Right Sector destroyed Soviet war memorials dedicated to the memory of the Russian troops who liberated Ukraine from Hitler’s armies. Videos are available online of Right Sector thugs attacking Russians on the streets in cities in eastern Ukraine.
The violent words and deeds issuing from the Washington-installed government alarmed the Russian speaking populations in Crimea and southern and eastern Ukraine. The elected government in Crimea voted to separate from Ukraine, and the Crimean population in a high vote turnout of 84% voted 97% to rejoin Russia. Washington misrepresented this democratic act of self-determination as a “Russian invasion and annexation.” Washington’s blatant lie was trumpeted by the Western presstitute media worldwide.
A Serious Miscalculation by Washington
On March 10 the U.S. Department of State issued a document listing President Putin’s “10 False Claims about Ukraine.” In fact the document was Washington’s “10 lies about Russian aggression against Ukraine.” The latest lies from the Obama regime, repeated endlessly by the presstitute media, are that Russian troops and tanks are massing on the Ukraine border. This lie has been disputed by NBC News. See this.
Washington’s puppet states in Eastern Europe are calling for US aircraft and NATO troops to protect them from a nonexistent threat of a Russian invasion of Eastern Europe. Washington is pressuring its NATO puppets to spend more on armaments and to speed up forward deployments of troops to Russia’s borders. NATO announced that it has suspended civilian and military cooperation with Russia. See this. NATO member foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels to work out details of a planned military escalation in Eastern Europe. See this. Washington is conducting numerous war games on Russia’s borders and is establishing NATO relationships with Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. See this. The unelected stooge government in Ukraine has agreed to participating in military exercises with NATO. See this.
No one in Washington or Europe has the wits to consider how all this bellicosity and saber-rattling looks to Putin and the Russian government. The lies are so thick that Putin and the Russian govern- ment have lost all belief in the integrity or word of Washington and the EU. Washington overthrows an elected government in Ukraine and declares an unelected government imposed by Washington to be “legal and legitimate,” but self-determination by Crimeans is “illegal and legitimate” and requires sanctions against Russia. The very governments who organized a coup against the elected Ukrainian government now call on Russia “to take immediate steps to return to compliance with international law.” What this means is that Russia should ignore Crimean self-determination and hand Crimea to Washington’s stooge government in Kiev so Washington can evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, thereby blocking Russian access to the Mediterranean Sea. Without access to the Mediterranean, Russia cannot defend its naval facility in Tartus, Syria, the only naval base in the Mediterranean Sea not under the control of the U.S. or U.S. puppets.
This arrogance from Washington comes after Russia has observed Washington’s strategic moves against Russian national interests and sovereignty for two decades.
Washington’s promises to Russia that NATO would not be expanded into Eastern Europe were broken and NATO was taken to Russia’s border. Washington withdrew from the ABM treaty, which prohibited escalating the arms race with anti-ballistic missile systems designed to negate an opponent’s strategic nuclear deterrent, thus making nuclear war “winnable.”
Washington arranged with a deranged Polish government to deploy anti-ballistic missile bases on Poland’s border with Russia, thus dooming Poland to annihilation if war breaks out. In 2010 Washington deployed Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles in Morag, Poland, about 35 kilometers from Russian territory. This is the first permanent deployment of land-based interceptor missiles outside the U.S. In 2018 advanced versions of interceptor missiles are to be positioned on Russia’s borders under Phase 3 of the European Phased Adaptive Approach U.S.-NATO Plan. To reassure Russia, Washington has talked about perhaps not going forward with the additional deployments, but certainly will use the crisis that Washington has instigated as justification for going forward with the additional ABM missiles on Russia’s borders. The U.S. and NATO have guided missile destroyers and cruisers equipped with interceptor missiles in the Mediterranean and will complete the surrounding of Russia with deployments to the Black, Baltic, Barents, and Norwegian Seas.
At this point it becomes easy to indwell Putin’s mind:
“The Americans tell us the fantastic lie that the purpose of American missile bases in Poland is to protect Europe from non-existent Iranian ICBMs. The Americans change their war doctrine to elevate their nuclear weapons from a retaliatory deterrent to a pre-emptive first strike force. The Americans pretend that this change in their war doctrine is directed at terrorists, but we know it is directed at Russia. The Americans have financed ‘color revolutions’ in Georgia and Ukraine and hope to do so in the Russian Federation itself. The Americans support the terrorists in Chechnya. The Americans trained and equipped the Georgian military and gave it the green light to attack our peacekeepers in South Ossetia. The Americans have financed the overthrow of the elected government in Ukraine and blame me for the anxiety this caused among Crimeans who on their own volition fled Ukraine and returned to Russia from whence they came. Even Gorbachev said that Khrushchev should never have put Crimea into Ukraine. Solzhenitsyn said that Lenin should not have put Russian provinces into eastern and southern Ukraine. Now I have these Russian provinces agitating to return to Russia, and the Americans are blaming me for the consequences of their own reckless and irresponsible actions.
“The Americans say I want to rebuild the Soviet Empire. Yet, the Americans witnessed me withdraw from Georgia when I had this former Russian province in my hands, thanks to Russia’s victory in the short-lived war instigated by the Americans.
“There is no end to the American lies. I have done everything possible to respond to provocations in a low-key reasonable manner, offering to work things out diplomatically, as has my Foreign Minister Lavrov. But the Americans continue to provoke and to hide their provocations behind lies. The Americans brazenly bring to me a strategic threat in Ukraine, a former Russian province. They intend to put Ukraine in NATO, the purpose of which expired with the Soviet collapse. They intend to put more missile bases on Russia’s borders, and they intended to evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, our warm water port.
“Americans have no intention of working anything out. They intend to subjugate Russia. Washington wants Russia powerless, surrounded with ABM bases that degrade our strategic deterrent to uselessness. These Americans will not work with me. They will not listen to me or to Russia’s Foreign Minister. They only hear their own call for American hegemony over the world. My only alternative is to prepare for war.”
The government of China, having read Washington’s war plans for war against China and being fully aware of Washington’s “pivot to Asia,” in which the “indispensable nation” announced its “safe-guarding of peace” by surrounding China with naval and air bases, understands that it has the same Washington enemy as does Russia.
Washington, overflowing with hubris and arrogance and filled with confidence from its choice by History as the hegemonic power, is driving the world to the final war.
As this edition of the Trends Journal publishes, pro-Russian separatists are holding fort in Ukrainian communities along the eastern border, as Kiev threatens to intervene. It’s a battle Ukraine cannot win. Washington’s grand scheme to envelope all of Ukraine into EU and NATO embrace backfired because Russian and Russian-speaking Ukrainians would not buy in. Crimea is already lost. Others can easily follow. Washington grossly miscalculated and is incapable of admitting its own miscalculations. As a result, Washington is left with no other choice but to push this conflict further, perhaps even to the brink of war.
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from Donbass Insider
